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Thirty days out is a month too late

By the time your renewal letter arrives, most residents who intend to leave have already viewed somewhere else. The sequence has to start while you are still the only option they are considering.

What's different here

Renewal communication in this industry is almost universally a single letter about price, sent a month before expiry, and it arrives after the decision. Moving the sequence months earlier and leading with something other than rent changes what it is: an opportunity to resolve the reasons people leave while there is still time to resolve them. That is a lifecycle programme, and it belongs to marketing even though everyone treats it as administration.

+31%lease renewal ratereal estate & proptech averageFrom Digital Squad client accounts. Orientation, not a guarantee — your starting point changes the range.

Real Estate & PropTech clients

NorthwindLumen LabsHarborlineVerdantAtlas FoodsPoka HealthBrightsideCobalt BankMeridianArdentFoundryKestrel
Vertical-specific tactics

What email marketing looks like for brokerages, property managers and proptech platforms.

These are the plays that wouldn't appear on a generic email marketing page — they only make sense in real estate & proptech.

01

Start at month nine of a twelve-month lease

Open on maintenance, improvements and renewal options rather than a number. The price conversation still happens, later, in a context where the resident has been reminded that things get fixed. Leading with rent invites a comparison with the market and nothing else.

02

Segment by maintenance responsiveness

How quickly someone's requests were resolved is consistently the sharpest predictor of renewal behaviour we can measure. Residents with a poor service history need a different sequence and, more importantly, an operational fix — sending them a cheerful renewal offer is worse than sending nothing.

03

Run a landlord programme, not just a tenant one

For managers, losing a landlord loses a whole portfolio at once, and most communicate with owners only when something goes wrong. A regular, genuinely informative owner update — market conditions, portfolio performance, what was maintained — is the highest-value email in this business and almost nobody sends it.

04

Reactivate the database on a cycle-length clock

Past buyers, sellers and enquirers transact again on a horizon measured in years. A light, useful sequence keyed to that horizon costs almost nothing and reaches people at the point competitors have forgotten them.

The constraints

What holds brokerages, property managers and proptech platforms back

01

Portals own your demand

A large share of enquiry arrives through listing portals that charge for access to customers who are, in effect, theirs. Every year that dependency deepens, the negotiating position weakens, and the cost per lead rises regardless of what you do.

02

Vacancy cost is invisible

The cost of an empty unit — vacant days, turnover, re-letting fees, the discount to move it quickly — sits in operations while marketing budget sits in acquisition. The two numbers rarely appear on the same page, so retention never wins the argument.

03

Local search across many locations

Multi-office brokerages and multi-site managers compete in dozens of local results simultaneously. Most run one generic site and a set of near-identical location pages that rank for nothing, which is a structural problem rather than a content one.

04

The transaction cycle outlasts the attribution window

Someone browsing today may transact in eighteen months. Any measurement built on a ninety-day window will conclude that brand and content do nothing, and the budget will move accordingly.

What's included

The full scope.

Everything in a email marketing engagement, applied to real estate & proptech.

01

Account & deliverability audit

Authentication records, sender reputation, list health, and flow coverage — with a prioritized fix list.

02

Core automation flows

Welcome, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, post-purchase, replenishment, win-back, and review request — designed, written, and built.

03

Segmentation architecture

Behavioral and lifecycle segments so every send goes to people it's actually relevant to.

04

Campaign calendar & production

A planned monthly calendar with design, copy, build, and send handled end to end.

05

SMS integration

Compliant SMS flows coordinated with email so customers get a coherent experience, not duplicate messages.

06

List growth systems

On-site capture, lead magnets, exit intent, and post-purchase capture — optimized for quality over raw volume.

07

Deliverability management

Authentication setup, warming plans, engagement-based sunsetting, and ongoing placement monitoring.

08

Revenue reporting

Flow-level and campaign-level revenue attribution, so you know exactly which emails earn their keep.

The process

How this runs.

  1. Audit

    Week 1

    Full review of your platform, flows, deliverability, list health, and current revenue attribution.

  2. Fix deliverability

    Weeks 1–2

    Authentication, list cleaning, and sunset policies. Everything else is wasted until the inbox is reachable.

  3. Build the flows

    Weeks 2–6

    Core automations designed, written, and launched — usually the fastest revenue win available.

  4. Campaigns & segmentation

    Ongoing

    Ongoing calendar, segment-specific sends, and continuous subject line and offer testing.

  5. Grow & optimize

    Month 2+

    List growth systems, flow-level testing, and expansion into SMS and push where it makes sense.

Investment

Scoped like the core service, no surcharge.

Every engagement is quoted from your actual brief. There's no vertical surcharge for this combination — request a quote and we'll scope it properly.

Flows

Build the automated backbone once, keep the revenue.

Scoped to your brief

  • Deliverability audit & fixes
  • 8 core flows built
  • Segmentation setup
  • Templates & design system
  • 30-day optimization
Request a quote
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Managed

Full ongoing email and SMS management.

Scoped to your brief

  • All flows built & maintained
  • 8 campaigns/month
  • SMS integration
  • Continuous A/B testing
  • List growth optimization
  • Deliverability monitoring
  • Monthly strategy call
Request a quote

Lifecycle

Complex lifecycle programs and enterprise CRM.

Scoped to your brief

  • Advanced lifecycle mapping
  • 16+ campaigns/month
  • Predictive segmentation & RFM
  • Loyalty program integration
  • Multi-brand / multi-region
  • Dedicated lifecycle strategist
Request a quote

All engagements start with a free audit. Prices exclude media spend, which you pay directly to the platforms on accounts you own.

Questions

Real Estate & PropTech questions, answered straight.

Price sets the ceiling on what retention can achieve; it does not determine the outcome on its own. Residents accept an increase from a manager who fixes things quickly and leave over a smaller one from a manager who does not. In the work we have done here, the clearest split in renewal behaviour tracked maintenance response times rather than the size of the increase — which means the most effective retention email is often a report on something that got fixed months earlier.

Email Marketing × Real Estate & PropTech

Let's talk about your growth constraint.

By the time your renewal letter arrives, most residents who intend to leave have already viewed somewhere else. The sequence has to start while you are still the only option they are considering.

Our commitment: If your automated flows don't pay back our build fee within 90 days, we build the next set of flows free.